Data processing systems typically require a large amount of data storage. Customer data, or data generated by users within the data processing system, usually occupy a great portion of this data storage. Effective data processing systems also provide backup copies of this user data to ensure against a loss of such data. For most businesses, any loss of data in their data processing systems is catastrophic, severely impacting the success of the business. To further protect customer data, some data processing systems extend the practice of making backup recovery copies to allow disaster recovery. In disaster recovery systems, a recovery copy of the customer data is kept at a site remote from the primary storage location. If a disaster strikes the primary storage location, the customer data can be retrieved or “recovered” from the recovery copies located at the remote site.
If backup data obtained from a data processing system employing a certain hardware environment is restored to a new data processing system that uses different hardware, in most cases the system cannot be used until the restored data is manually customized to the new hardware. For example, new hardware drivers have to be installed.